Eighty Three Percent Satisfaction Rate Comes With Note That Eighty Three Percent Of Respondents Were Government Employees
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
Philippine Statistics Authority Releases Survey Showing Most Filipinos Believe Government Is Doing Well Based On Survey Conducted By Government
MANILA — The Philippine Statistics Authority released Tuesday the results of its 2024 National Government Performance Perception Survey, which found that 83 percent of respondents rated the current national government’s performance as “satisfactory” or “very satisfactory,” a finding that the PSA described as “a strong indicator of public confidence in the administration.”
The survey, which was conducted by PSA field researchers using a questionnaire developed by the PSA in coordination with the Presidential Communications Office, sampled 4,800 respondents across all seventeen regions of the Philippines. The PSA’s release noted, in a footnote on page forty-seven of the technical notes, that 83 percent of the survey’s respondents were current government employees, since the survey had been administered at government offices, government facilities, and government-sponsored community events during government office hours.
PSA Director General Perla Mercado-Enriquez, presenting the results, described the 83 percent satisfaction rate as “consistent with the administration’s demonstrated commitment to public service” and said the findings “validated the government’s approach across multiple program areas.” She did not, in her opening remarks, reference the government employee composition of the respondent pool.
A journalist at the press conference asked about the respondent composition. Director General Mercado-Enriquez said the composition was “noted in the technical documentation” and that “government employees are part of the Filipino public and their perceptions are relevant data.” She added that the survey’s methodology had been “approved through the PSA’s standard review process.”
The Methodology
The survey methodology, described in the forty-seven-page technical notes, uses a stratified sampling approach in which sampling points are selected from a master list of “accessible community locations.” The master list, the technical notes explain, prioritizes “locations with high population density and logistical accessibility,” which in practice has produced a sample concentrated at government offices, public markets adjacent to government facilities, and community centers operated by local government units.
The questionnaire is administered in person by PSA field researchers who identify themselves to respondents as government employees conducting an official government survey. The questionnaire asks respondents to rate specific government programs, the performance of government agencies, and the overall performance of the current administration. The questionnaire does not include a question about whether the respondent is a government employee.
The technical notes acknowledge, in a section titled “Limitations,” that “the sample composition may reflect the accessibility and cooperation of government-associated locations” and that “results should be interpreted in light of this sampling characteristic.” The public release document does not include the limitations section. It includes the 83 percent figure prominently in its first paragraph.
This kind of disconnect between the methodological documentation and the public presentation is consistent with a long tradition in government-commissioned research where the full methodological caveats are present in documents that are read by specialists and absent in communications read by the public.
The Independent Assessment
Several independent polling organizations, including Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia, conduct their own government performance surveys using different methodologies. Their most recent surveys, conducted in the same quarter as the PSA survey, show government performance ratings of approximately 52 percent “good” or better, a figure substantially below the PSA’s 83 percent. The methodological difference between the surveys is that SWS and Pulse Asia use random sampling that is not limited to government-associated locations.
PSA Director General Mercado-Enriquez, asked about the discrepancy, said the surveys “use different methodologies and measure different things” and that “direct comparison is not appropriate.” She acknowledged that the PSA survey’s methodology produced a “specific perspective” on government performance but said this perspective was “valuable and valid.”
This kind of defense of a specific methodology by characterizing it as measuring something different rather than measuring the same thing less accurately is consistent with a wider pattern in government research where methodological choices that favor positive findings are defended on grounds of methodological distinctiveness rather than methodological adequacy.
The Respondents
Several of the survey’s respondents were located and contacted by reporters Wednesday. Of twelve respondents who agreed to be interviewed, ten confirmed they were government employees. One said she was a vendor at a market adjacent to a government office and had been approached during working hours. One said he was a barangay official, which is an elected local position that the PSA classified as a community respondent rather than a government employee.
Among the ten government employees, seven rated government performance as satisfactory or very satisfactory. One said she had rated it as “satisfactory” because the PSA researcher was from her agency and she had not wanted to create “an uncomfortable situation.” Another said he had rated it as “very satisfactory” because “my job security feels related to this somehow, though I am not sure exactly how.”
These responses were not captured in the PSA’s data because the questionnaire did not include questions about the reasons for satisfaction ratings.
The Government Response
The Presidential Communications Office issued a statement Tuesday praising the survey results and describing them as “a clear signal that the Filipino people recognize and appreciate the government’s efforts.” The statement did not reference the government employee composition of the respondent pool. It described the 83 percent satisfaction rate as “historic.”
For more on Philippine government survey methodology, see The Daily Mash for related British government satisfaction survey coverage.
The PSA plans to conduct the survey annually. The methodology will be refined “based on feedback from the standard review process.”